


Waiting to Breathe

by Nobbie (sirconnie)



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Gen, Shepard Twins (Mass Effect), Siblings, altho to be fair he wasn't there for a lot of it, this is basically lo shepard's brother (carter) dealing with being related to the Galaxy's Last Hope, this is mostly a stream of consciousness that i wanna post lolol we love siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 02:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16883817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirconnie/pseuds/Nobbie
Summary: It seems like a huge portion of Carter's relationship with his sister is made up of waiting for her to wake up. He didn't think he had to do that anymore when she died.





	Waiting to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> im so sorry if you thought this was the For the Mission sequel......i have no idea when that's happening ;___; i've been swamped with work and school!! i wasn't even gonna post this, i was just musing on carter and lo and this sort of poured out. i like it a lot tho so im gonna throw it out there.

The first time Carter waited by a hospital bed for his sister to wake up was when they were seven. She’d had a stroke and collapsed in the kitchen, which put a damper on Pizza Night.

Their moms rushed to the hospital, Carter pressing against his safety belt in the backseat as he leaned over to look at the passenger’s seat where their Ma holds his unmoving sister. He doesn’t remember what the name of the hospital was, or what the doctor whispered to their moms, or if he even got to have pizza that night.

But he remembers the waiting. He remembers sitting on that chair that was too big for him, his sneakers not quite touching the shiny linoleum floor. He wasn’t swinging them like he usually did and they just hung there while he sat in silence and stared at her sleeping face. She looked smothered under that blanket on that big bed, her little head the only thing visible. She didn’t move at all, didn’t toss and turn the way she always did when she slept. If it wasn’t for her oxygen mask clouding up, he would think she wasn’t breathing.

The second time was when they were thirteen. She didn’t want to be called Mena anymore, she was _Lo_ now. She thought it was more mature, better fitting for a normal teenager. Her fixation on being normal came as a result of her finally getting to go to school with him after all her health problems. After years of homeschooling, she was beside herself. Carter was psyched, too, and it wasn’t even all because he wouldn’t have to watch her sleep in while he dragged his ass out of bed at 6AM. That did feel pretty good, though.

She was doing so well after getting over the initial overstimulation of public school. She’d balked at just how many other kids she’d be around, but she got used to it quicker than he expected. She got through a solid three weeks with no issues until they were on there way out of the building to go home and she blacked out in the middle of the hallway. It was so fast, he didn’t realize what happened until she fell, her glasses bouncing off when her head slammed onto the floor.

He dropped to his knees and called her name over and over, but she didn’t move. He patted her face, a little worried he’d have to actually slap her to wake her up. Her skin was hot to the touch, feverish like it hasn’t been in years. He had a hand on her forehead when he felt the bite of static on his palm. There was a low hum coming from her and his heart sank when she started giving off a crackling blue light.

Carter was the first person to know his sister was a biotic. Too many realizations came at him at once - how she’d been sick for years and for practically no reason. How she’d almost never get cold, no matter how strong the AC was. How she was literally giving off electricity right then and was _glowing_.

He watched the blue lights rippling over her and his breathing went shallow. He remembered what happened to all the biotics. How they were rounded up and taken away indefinitely. It first started years ago, and those kids haven’t been seen since.

He’s not proud of how he handled that. He likes to think he didn’t panic as much as he did, and the hall was empty, so there’s no one to call him on it. But it was bad.

He dragged her to the first room he could find - the supply closet - and that was pretty much his whole plan. Then he remembered he had a phone and pulled that out, only for Lo to flare up again, making boxes float and firing static everywhere. His phone shorted out in his hand and that was the end of the new plan.

The _new_ new plan was to rifle through all the boxes in the closet, hoping against hope that there was something in them that could help. Miraculously, he found a phone. A clunky, dusty one, but one that had just enough battery left for one call.

After a lot of thought, he ended up calling their cousin, Keira. Their moms weren’t going to get there in time and he needed help fast. Keira only asked a couple of questions when he’d finished dumping it all on her. She told him it would be okay and that she’d be at the school as fast as she could.

She got there after the longest eight minutes of Carter’s life and they got Lo into the car without being seen. She drove them to a friend of hers, an Asari who knew exactly what to do. She used her own biotics to stabilize Lo’s and Carter was there to watch. Her blue light was paler than Lo’s and it washed over the jagged spikes of electricity until they were gone.

The Asari, Istha, talked to him and Keira about what to do if Lo flares up again. Carter wasn’t really listening, even though he knew he should’ve been.

He sat facing Lo’s bed, waiting for her to wake up. He hadn’t realized how much he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to do that again until that moment. He turned away and asked Istha to run it through one more time, determined to understand.

He would wait for Lo again almost ten years later, and he would be grateful for it. This time, seeing her in a hospital bed with machines beeping around her was a relief, because it meant she was alive. When he got the call that the colony she was spending her shore leave on was attacked by pirates, he hadn’t been sure.

The relief only lasted for a minute, though. Keira was in the colony with her. She didn’t make it. He wondered if Lo knew that as he sat next to her bed. The most selfish part of him hoped she did, so that he wouldn’t have to tell her. She was always closer to Keira than he was, enough that she followed her into the Alliance military. Losing his cousin hurt, but the thought of having to break his sister’s heart was worse.

He had no idea. He never could’ve predicted that Lo would wake up and then almost have a panic attack when he got up to go out and call their moms. Her heart monitor was beeping like crazy and it was only drowned out by Lo’s harsh, scratchy voice as she begged him to stay. The doctors told him she’d been strangled and he’d managed to not think about that until just then. He pleaded with her to stop talking, to breathe and calm down, even if he was having a hard time doing that himself. She just started crying and held onto his hand so tight, pleading through a mangled throat. He promised her he’d stay, sat right back down and squeezed her hand back.

She stared at him, her bruised face streaked with tears, and he stared right back. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not even when the nurse who was alerted by Lo’s heart monitor came and put her back to sleep with a switch on her IV. Carter kept his hand in hers and didn’t move.

He wouldn’t have to wait for her again for over a decade. But then, he wouldn’t have spoken to her for just as long.

What happened on that colony changed her, he knew it then. His sister had become the darling of the military and there was no room for him in her life anymore. She chose serving the Alliance over him.

Well, that’s not entirely right. He certainly felt that way at the time, but he’d had a hand in that whole disaster, too. He could’ve tried to talk it out and understand what she was really trying to do instead of getting mad. He could’ve remembered that she was still reeling from a loss and adjusted. Maybe then they wouldn’t have had the biggest fight of their lives and become strangers to each other.

Maybe then, when she died, he would’ve dealt with it better.

But, they did. And she did. And he didn’t.

It took the better half of two years, but he moved on. He forgave her and owned up to his part in their fight. It was hard, almost impossible, adjusting to suddenly becoming an only child. The news punched the breath out of him and he never really found it again.

But he did it. He wasn’t okay, but he was on his way to okay, and that was good. He was good.

Then every goddamn news station started reporting on Commander Shepard’s miraculous reappearance. Every article speculated on how the Hero of Elysium can possibly be back. Everyone in the galaxy told him that his sister is alive.

He didn’t know how to take it. He saw all the footage and it was definitely Lo. She looked different, bigger, but he knew it was her. She had the same tired eyes and the same thick hair he was always jealous of. Should he have been angry that she was alive? That she made him spend the last two years trying to live in a universe without her? Or should he have been glad?

He figured he’d just wait, like he always does. If she wanted to see him, she could. It’s not like he had a lot of places to go, what with the war. He’d heard that she was basically in charge of the galaxy’s survival, so there wasn’t much of a chance that he’d run into her until this was all over.

That was what he thought, until he turned around and saw her. She found him on the Citadel and he couldn’t do anything but stare. She was there, alive, and everything else went out of focus.

She got taller. That was the first thing he thought. They’d been virtually the same height their whole lives, but it looked like she’d finally beat him. He had enough awareness for that to annoy him just a little.

She kept looking at him for a second then back at the ground. She stood slouched, her boots shuffling a little on the ground as she talked, but he barely heard her. She said she’s sorry, but Carter didn’t need it. He was looking at her and all he could see was a giant version of the little girl who ruined Pizza Night.

She only stopped talking when he went over and hugged her hard enough to knock the wind out of them both. It wasn’t as easy to hug her as he remembered. She wasn’t a soft, chubby kid anymore and his arms had to get around hard, wide shoulders to hold her.

But it was definitely his sister who hugged back. So tightly he felt like his ribs were going to cave in. He was somehow able to suck in a gulp of air even as she squeezed him, almost choking on it.

For the first time in over two years, he could breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> if i do end up writing the Mission sequel, carter will def feature heavily. i imagine him being the ship reporter instead of that diana (diane??) lady, who was fine, but she doesn't fit into my Grand Story the way carter does lmao thanks for reading!! leave a comment if u liked it!


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